14: Tastes of the UK

English food gets a bad wrap. First of all, Indian food is the unofficial official food of the UK. I’ve had so many delicious curries during this trip! Tandoor, tikka, meat curry, chicken curry, aubergine (eggplant) curry. Yum.

Liz Payne in Yorkshire makes the best breakfasts I’ve ever had. Fry-ups with perfect eggs and blood pudding and ham with beans and toast. Poached eggs that look like works of art. Dippy Eggs (soft-boiled) and toast soldiers. Yogurt with homemade granola. I ran through her whole menu.

Gorgeous sandwiches — the artisan granary bread with fresh farm ham, tomato, English white cheddar, greens, and English butter. Cheese and tomato, Cornish pasties, the tea sandwiches at Cloud 23 that included ham and cheese on brioche, egg salad, sausage rolls, salmon and mayo, not to be confused with Liz’s salmon sandwich with mayo, lemon, cucumber, salt and pepper.

Fish and chips with mushy peas from Chippies (fish and chip shops) are the best anywhere, seafood linguini made with mussels, prawns, whitefish and topped with parmigiana and black pepper at a friend’s table, salmon pate at a restaurant, mmm. Poached salmon with cream sauce and broccolini at another friend’s table. My goodness.

So. Much. Good. Tea. All day, everywhere.

Mango pastry filled with cream. Berry muffin filled with cream. Something called an Irish Cream Cheesecake that is some majorly beautiful food. Chocolates and tarts at high tea. Scones with clotted cream and jam FTW.

A decent margarita at Bill’s in Newbury, and I forgot how close we are to France — all the prosecco is so GOOD. The bars are using freeze-dried fruits as garnish and flavor, and I hope the bars in the US are, too. A really cool touch.

So don’t be fooled or buy the hype — the food in England is amazing.